One week later. The Tokyo and Kyoto Goodwill Event.
Satoru Gojo stood on a civilian fishing boat. He lifted his blindfold, the Cursed Energy Residuals reflecting with crystal clarity in his Six Eyes. But the owner of those residuals was long gone. In their place was a bizarre Shikigami. Unaware of Gojo's presence, the Shikigami simply rowed the boat with mechanical precision.
"She really came prepared, huh," Gojo sighed. "Yuki... at this rate, even if I wanted to, I wouldn't be able to keep up with you."
To think the Six Eyes had been bypassed so simply. Gojo felt a complicated mix of emotions.
His strength was absolute and unquestionable. Because of that, he had never bothered hiding his abilities. The entire world knew about his Six Eyes and Limitless. Yet, how many people in the entire world actually dared to challenge him? Since his debut, everyone who came for his head had died, including the heavily armed Tyrant of Heavenly Restriction.
But today, his myth had been shattered once again.
The first time his myth was broken was during his student days. Back when he hadn't fully mastered the integration of the Six Eyes and the Limitless technique, he encountered the Tyrant of Heavenly Restriction; he genuinely almost died on that mission.
Back then, both his brain and his Dantian were destroyed. His brain was where his Innate Technique resided, and his Dantian was the core where his Cursed Energy was generated. Theoretically, he couldn't have been any deader.
Yet, he resurrected right there on the spot.
In the throes of a deathmatch, he bypassed the need for experience and the grind of time. In a mere instant, he perfectly fused the Six Eyes with the Limitless, ascending to the throne of the strongest in the world.
After that, he delivered a cathartic, flawless vengeance, slaughtering the Tyrant of Heavenly Restriction.
And now, this was the second time.
The tracking capability of his Six Eyes was unrivaled under the heavens. Even against spatial teleportation, as long as the distance wasn't too extreme, he could still visually track the Cursed Energy Residuals left in space and immediately give chase. Every Curse User who ever caught his eye had died this way.
But Yuki Tsukumo had broken that rule.
Her method was so simple it actually made Gojo want to laugh: she created a Shikigami deeply connected to her own Cursed Energy, and then completely concealed her own Cursed Energy fluctuations. Even knowing her trick beforehand, Gojo had still ended up tracking her Shikigami instead of her.
Normally, a Shikigami is not the Sorcerer themselves. Its Cursed Energy Residuals are entirely distinct from its master's. Take Mei Mei's crow Shikigami, for example. Even if she can share their vision and link her Cursed Energy with them, a crow is still a crow, and a human is still a human. To the Six Eyes, the difference is glaringly obvious.
But Yuki Tsukumo's case was different. Her Shikigami could perfectly replicate her own personal Cursed Energy Residuals, to such a degree of similarity that the Shikigami could actually wield her Innate Technique.
This was Yuki Tsukumo's one-of-a-kind Cursed Tool Shikigami!
In the entire original canon, only Yuki Tsukumo could pull this off. And it wasn't even an innate function of her technique—it was purely because her mastery over Jujutsu was so obscenely high it baffled everyone else. It was no exaggeration to say she was the greatest Jujutsu master in the world. When it came to general, fundamental Jujutsu application, she was unrivaled.
"Well then, I guess I can't protect you this time." Gojo dropped his smile and pulled his blindfold back down, murmuring softly, "Don't go dying on me, Yuki."
***
"Looks like he really didn't follow me," Yuki sighed. "Satoru... the downside of never hiding your abilities is on full display here. Because everyone knows everything about you, everyone is researching how to counter you. Even if they can't beat you in a fight, everyone's got their own magic trick for escaping you."
Wasn't she exactly the same? This trick was originally meant as a failsafe—a backup plan to put Satoru Gojo down in case he ever went insane like Suguru Geto. But right now, she had inadvertently played herself. Under the restrictions of a Binding Vow, she had successfully shaken Gojo off her tail.
She wasn't sure whether to be proud or depressed about it.
Deep in the heart of the Sahara Desert, in a place completely devoid of human presence, Yuki Tsukumo walked alone. She wasn't worried about getting lost. The moment she stepped into the desert, she sensed a distinct trail of Cursed Energy Residuals acting as a beacon, guiding her path.
This was the battlefield chosen by the Lord of Cursed Spirits. It was far less romantic than Yuki had expected.
In Yuki's mind, a big shot like the Lord of Cursed Spirits should have picked an ancient colosseum, an uncharted island, or perhaps a dramatic cliffside by the sea. But no one could have guessed he'd pick the middle of a desert.
Yet, bizarrely, Yuki completely understood the Lord of Cursed Spirits' reasoning:
*—Let's have a spectacular, no-holds-barred deathmatch!*
Every action he had taken screamed this exact sentiment.
Because this was an utterly desolate desert. If they had fought in a colosseum, an island, or by the sea, the collateral damage of their battle could easily harm innocent bystanders. But here, there was no such worry.
Yuki happily accepted.
Her Innate Technique was never suited for delicate, precision work. If she went all out, the scale of destruction would be something even she couldn't fully calculate. Sinking the Japanese archipelago wasn't just a hyperbolic joke.
But out here, she could fight with zero restraints.
Suddenly, she stopped. She stood in place, glancing around, then raised a hand and reached forward. The moment her hand made contact with the empty air, layer upon layer of barriers materialized. These barriers didn't reject her in the slightest.
Yuki instantly realized: this was a barrier designed exclusively to let her in. She had arrived.
She expanded her senses to their absolute limit, straining to cover the entire barrier. Her Cursed Energy perception wasn't as freakish as Gojo's. If it were Satoru Gojo, he would have done this effortlessly, right? Just like in the canon, when Gojo, while still sitting in a moving car, detected Jogo's ultra-long-range ambush and stopped the car to step out and fight him solo. Yuki couldn't do that.
But even so, she could still detect the individuals stationed at the barrier's anchor points.
"One, two, three... seven Cursed Spirits in total," Yuki muttered to herself. "Is this all of the intelligent Cursed Spirits? That means if I kill the Lord of Cursed Spirits, I can wipe out the rest of these intelligent Cursed Spirits in one clean sweep."
Barriers require casters to maintain them. This wasn't Japan. In Japan, the master barrier covering the entire nation made utilizing Barrier Techniques significantly easier. Even auxiliary managers with a sliver of Cursed Energy and zero combat ability could cast simple barriers. But overseas, things weren't so convenient.
This proved that every single one of these intelligent Cursed Spirits possessed a high level of proficiency in Barrier Techniques. Aside from the Lord of Cursed Spirits, the others were pouring all their power into maintaining this massive structure.
Yet, she couldn't detect any human Cursed Energy Residuals.
Yuki could pinpoint the difference between the Cursed Energy of a Spirit and a human with absolute precision. Therefore, she was certain: only intelligent Cursed Spirits were present here. There were no humans.
*Does that mean Ashiya Sadatsuna isn't here?* Yuki pondered.
How exactly these intelligent Cursed Spirits were born had become the most critical question in the modern Jujutsu world. After all, this was the first occurrence in a millennium. Every Sorcerer was completely in the dark about it.
Tengen believed that even the intelligent Cursed Spirits themselves might not fully understand it, and that only their mentor, Ashiya Sadatsuna, knew the truth. Therefore, to Jujutsu society, capturing Ashiya Sadatsuna was just as important as killing the Lord of Cursed Spirits.
But Ashiya Sadatsuna wasn't here... *Where is he?*
"...Whatever. That's not my mission anyway." Yuki took a deep breath and casually tossed aside her white cape. She wore a tight black tank top that exposed her midriff and arms, the fabric clinging to her skin and accentuating her voluptuous figure. She stood tall and took a massive stretch, her bodily curves rolling like a roaring ocean wave.
She thought back to the intel on the Lord of Cursed Spirits. She recalled the words of the elderly and weak survivors she had questioned at the Zen'in clan:
*[That night, the wind and rain battered the doors, and thunder tore across the sky. Everyone deemed lacking in combat ability was hiding in the underground training grounds. They had no idea what was happening, but everyone remained dead silent, oppressed by an invisible, crushing pressure. Some children started to cry, but their mothers clamped hands over their mouths, not daring to let a single sound escape.
Until a heaven-shaking voice pierced straight through the earth. Someone was announcing their arrival, kicking the front door down to commit slaughter! The Lord of Cursed Spirits delivered a divine decree to the world:
—The human curse upon humanity, Mahito, has arrived!]*
Yuki felt as if she were picturing a legendary Swordmaster walking straight out of the Heian Era. She could perfectly imagine the Lord of Cursed Spirits dressed in traditional samurai garb, a longsword at his hip, a bamboo hat on his head, walking through the rainy night, accompanied by the wind, the rain, and the thunder.
*How incredibly elegant,* Yuki thought. *Just picturing it... what an incredibly refined man. He must be cloaked in glory, bearing the weight of mass death on his back. Under normal circumstances, I would definitely want to get to know a figure like that.*
*—Assuming, of course, that he was a human and not a Cursed Spirit.*
*Announcing your name with honor and kicking the front door down?*
*Allow me to show you how it's done, Lord of Cursed Spirits.* The corners of Yuki's mouth curled into a smile. It wasn't a beautiful smile; it was fierce and vicious, like a bloodthirsty wolf. She echoed one final thought in her mind:
*This is how Jujutsu Sorcerers fight in the modern era!*
A snake-like Shikigami coiled around Yuki's body. It floated weightlessly until she extended her hand, at which point it slithered down her arm.
It curled into a ball as Yuki lifted it. This was Yuki's highest-grade Cursed Tool Shikigami, and the very prototype Mahito used to conceptualize Kinji Hakari's external Cursed Energy circulation organ—the Companion Spirit.
Cursed Tool Shikigami: Garuda.
Garuda possessed an ability entirely unique among all Shikigami created by Sorcerers. It could seamlessly link with the Sorcerer's own Cursed Energy, acting as an external target for Yuki's Innate Technique. Because it was essentially forged from her technique—well, that might be hard to understand, so to put it bluntly—
—This Cursed Tool Shikigami could synchronize with Yuki and utilize Star Rage.
"Cursed Technique Release." Yuki exhaled slowly. She hoisted Garuda high and tossed it gently into the air, exactly like a soccer player serving a ball.
"Star Rage."
BAM! Yuki kicked Garuda with everything she had.
The next instant, Garuda shattered the barrier in front of them, rocketing forward like an artillery shell. The sheer, catastrophic kinetic force of its spin caused the desert terrain along its path to violently peel backward and roll outwards, like a passenger jet making an emergency crash landing on the ocean.
In the original canon, a very similar event occurred:
Satoru Gojo and Ryomen Sukuna arranged a duel. They agreed on a time and place. As the time approached, Sukuna waited exactly where he was supposed to, just as Mahito was doing now.
But Gojo didn't just walk up to him. He had his senior perform a dance that globally amplified his Cursed Energy output. Then, from two kilometers away, he aimed straight at the waiting Sukuna and fired a maximum-output Hollow Purple. A blatant, unapologetic pre-battle sneak attack.
Exactly like Yuki Tsukumo right now!
"Carve this into your very life!" Yuki bared her teeth, laughing uproariously. "This... is how modern Jujutsu Sorcerers fight!"
The power granted by Star Rage vastly exceeded human imagination. The hurricane generated by its colossal mass annihilated everything in its path. It was like a low-flying, frenzied dragon, bulldozing the world with peerless, divine authority.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM—!
Garuda struck the earth. The resulting sound wasn't a single impact, but a continuous chain of detonations. The sheer excess kinetic energy and the ensuing shockwaves were so massive they triggered secondary explosions, then tertiary, then quaternary!
The entire desert seemed to convulse. Countless tons of sand were launched hundreds of meters into the air, expanding outward with the explosive shockwaves. The gale-force winds caught the sand, twisting it into a mobile, apocalyptic waterspout of grit, while rings of concussive force continuously rippled outward.
Then came the backdraft. Everything was sucked violently back toward the epicenter of the blast. The airborne sand collided in the sky, the heavy grit beginning to fall, slowly contracting and condensing into a colossal mushroom cloud.
A gargantuan mushroom cloud slowly took shape, refusing to dissipate for a long time.
Yuki stood her ground. As the violent winds lashed at her, she shielded her eyes with her arm. Cursed Energy enveloped her like armor, but even so, the sand pelted her from all directions like thousands of razor blades. She had no choice but to continuously reinforce her body. The world before her had been reduced to an impenetrable, blinding haze.
She had created a literal sandstorm with a single strike. And this was merely the aftershock of her attack.
*Is Mahito dead...?*
Suddenly, Yuki's primal survival instincts screamed. A streak of silver light pierced through the sandstorm, swimming fluidly like a playful silver sailfish. Yuki felt no sense of beauty from it; she only felt as if all the terror in the world had been condensed into a single point and detonated.
Mirokuji Kirigiri, Tsukumogami Ability Release—Cleaving Line!
A colossal slash tore the sandstorm wide open. Yuki threw herself to the side in a desperate dive, witnessing the entirety of the strike. A sandstorm isn't a physical object; it's a natural disaster composed of wind and grit. Yet, this disaster was cleanly bisected, split in two like a sheet of paper cut by a scalpel. The silver light extended infinitely, vanishing over the unseen horizon.
Yuki's pupils contracted. She recognized that technique.
"A high-speed, compressed blade of wind. That's Ame-no-Habakiri!" Yuki said in disbelief. "That's Ogi Zen'in's Innate Technique. Why can the Lord of Cursed Spirits use Ogi Zen'in's technique? No, wait. Even if Ogi himself used Ame-no-Habakiri, he couldn't possibly cleave a sandstorm this massive. There's another technique layered on top of it?"
*A dual-technique combination?*
*Or is it a fused technique? Is that even possible?!*
Yuki's scalp prickled. A wave of heart-stopping dread washed over her, making her feel as if she were drowning in the abyssal depths of the ocean.
At the end of the bisected sandstorm, a man was slowly strolling forward. He wore a black haori over a white kimono, a bamboo hat resting on his head. In his hand, he held an unnervingly long, straight-edged blade. He walked with a leisurely, idle pace. As he neared Yuki, he reached up and tipped his hat back, revealing his heterochromatic eyes.
Yuki's pupils shrank. There wasn't a single scratch on his body. Even his exquisite clothing was completely pristine. He was walking through a desert, yet Yuki suddenly felt as if she were standing beneath the torii gates of a shrine, cherry blossoms scattering from both sides and drifting down the steps, while the Lord of Cursed Spirits tread upon the petals to pass through the gate.
Garuda's ambush hadn't even managed to get a single grain of sand on the Lord of Cursed Spirits' clothes.
*He really is exactly as the rumors say. So elegant he looks like he stepped out of an Ukiyo-e painting.*
"A pleasure to meet you, Tsukumo-san," the Lord of Cursed Spirits spoke. "The human curse upon humanity, Mahito. Let's have a good fight."
Yuki slowly stood up, spitting grit from her mouth, and flashed a ferocious grin. "Likewise, Mahito-san—"
"Special Grade Jujutsu Sorcerer, Yuki Tsukumo. Let's have a good fight!"